Access Across America: Biking 2024

Nearly half of top US cities experienced increases in biking accessibility

Access Across America: Biking 2024 provides a ranking of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas for accessibility to jobs for workers traveling via bicycle. Transportation planners and policymakers can use these findings to better coordinate investments in bicycle facilities with the location of jobs and housing to improve job accessibility.

The study incorporates traffic stress and cycling comfort in its evaluation of access to destinations by bicycle. In the methodology of the study, low-stress routes are separated bike lanes and paths. Medium-stress routes include all bike infrastructure—including on-street unprotected bike lanes, certain shared lanes, and bicyclists mixing with traffic on some non-arterial streets.

Across the top 50 metro areas, year-to-year increases in accessibility to jobs by bicycle were nearly uniformly positive, with Providence, Denver, and Indianapolis showing the largest gains. On low-stress networks, bicycle commuters in Providence could reach 26% more job destinations than in 2023, while Denver and Indianapolis saw gains of 14% each.   

The metro areas that make up the top 10 biking accessibility ranks for both the low-stress and medium-stress categories are mostly the same, with a few differences. Cities with large, high-density urban cores show up in both lists, reflecting the influence of land-use on bicycle access to destinations. Total employment within a metropolitan area is not necessarily a good predictor of bicycle access to jobs; for instance, the Boston metropolitan area is ranked 10th largest by total employment, but it ranks 3rd by access to jobs on low-stress bicycle networks. Conversely, Dallas ranks 4th by total employment, but 21st by access to jobs on medium-stress and low-stress bike networks.